The Fifty Shades Trilogy...Not quite What It Should Be

 I have been working on trying to keep up with everyone else out there in Bookland (not an easy thing to do with so much new material out there), so when I saw a partial review of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James (the latest hot thing going) I thought I would get right on that and see what all the fuss was about.
I don't like to see reviews before I have read a new book,  I'd rather find out about it for myself, make an unbiased first impression and then read what other people think of it ( there is a lot of entertainment value to be had with that, I promise).  I have also always had an issue with the reviewer who just basically sums up the whole book for you and writes maybe a sentence or two about what they thought and if they liked it or not.  I dislike even more the people who read those kinds of reviews and decide not to read the book because of it.  It's not only really tedious to read such reviews but frustrating as well.  How could anyone but myself really know if I would like something or not?  It's ridiculous (and unfair to the author).
Since Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was mentioned in the little snippet of  review I saw, I thought that I would do this properly by going back and re-reading the Twilight Saga (along with all of those other little tidbits of writing you can find on her website here: Stephenie Meyer ).  I really recommend that you do this first before delving into Fifty Shades because it really will enhance your overall entertainment value (trust me).  In a way, reading through the trilogy was like an I-Spy book for adults... a spot the Bella, Edward or someone else from Twilght reference, as well as lines, words that stick out, and behaviours (don't worry... I won't point them out for you, it really is loads of fun to find them all for yourself!).  You won't have to wait long!  The very first Twilight-isms are in the opening paragraph. 

Like Twilight, I have re-read this trilogy a few times now... for the same reasons.  While I liked the story, there is something I am struggling to understand, and haven't quite figured out yet.  I need to know why these books are such a huge success.  It is a fascinating study.  I can see the basic lure  in each story, and if I go to what I think of as the best romantic story there is (in my opinion), Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen, I can find similar elements there as well (we all know Meyer did borrow from Austen in this regard as well as other authors for each of her books using them as an underlying theme for each book, though not taking directly from them as E.L.James did).  We have our first impressions (that essential first meeting), the main issues/predjudices to overcome and then the reward of our two lovers finally getting together and the satisfying conclusion of living happily ever after.  These are the basics, and I love a good romance.  In my life I have been fortunate to have already read some really beautiful  love stories, with great characters that were intelligent and interesting personalities, and intensely romantic ones both of which are beguiling prerequisites for a good romantic novel, so I have some high expectations for what I consider a well written romantic novel.  Twilight wasn't written for adults, I think that critics forget that sometimes, and I haven't agreed with most of the complaints against it.   As far as relationship literature goes, Twilight is on a higher level compared to the Mills and Boon tripe that I read in my teens.  I like Twilight for this reason as it not only features good, strong characters with good morals, but also does a push for classic literature.  I cannot help but wonder how many girls out there after reading Twilight went out and read their first ever Jane Austen novel? 

Fifty Shades is the 'grown-up' version of Twilight (and a badly summarized version,) with lots of stuff taken from Twilight but arranged in different order from the original... a trick I used to do in school when I had to write a summary on something and my teacher would say "in your own words" so I would just mix the order up to make it seem like it was my own work.    We don't have vampires, or other mythical creatures, instead we have a porn book (though I am extremely grateful that James decided on some more tasteful alternatives to the usual 'cock and pussy' labels because I probably would have put the book down after the first couple of chapters), with a BDSM theme.  I must say that I am worried about this, because young Twilight fans out there will want to read this, and I hate to think of someone like my niece or my friend's daughters reading this.  Easy access to the internet means easy access to this.   Which leads me on to my next concern, the quality of the writing involved.  After my first read through I was really puzzled.  There are so many mistakes in the text!  It was my husband who informed me that this was deliberate, that the publishing company who bought these books did not want to change it in any way (because it was so popular the way it was).   This really has me worried.  What will this do to the standards already set in place in the publishing industry?  What will this do to future literature?   I heard that when E.L. James was asked about this issue in an interview  she responded by saying that great writers like Mark Twain and William Shakespeare didn't use editors.  What does this mean?  Does she think that she is as great as them? Is she arrogant or just ignorant?  Or both?  I don't really think that she meant it that way, and I suspect that she has been getting lots of questions about the quality of her work... it's just a really unfortunate choice for a rebuttal.   I suggest that both Shakespeare and Twain did a great deal of self-editing, that they did a great job of it, and that it is not really a relevant statement to make about works that were written in past centuries, and that in this century there are established standards, requirements, and procedures which are more appropriate to today's works of literature.  It's also really unfair to established writers who have done the hard work and have earnt their success.

Lastly, I want to say that I did like this story.  It has great potential to be one of those great romances in a modern setting.  I wish that this trilogy of books had been edited.  There is too much there that really isn't necessary (let's cut out 95% of the sex okay? ...and those long strings of one word sentences, I mean, come on!) is just annoying and slightly painful (and not in a sexy BDSM way).

  I am reminded of a quote by C.S.Lewis: "Don't use words too big for the subject.  Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very', otherwise you'll have no words left when you want to talk about something really infinite".

In Mourning

The day before yesterday my world fell out from underneath me.  I had heard that my most favorite (of all time and until forever) writer had passed away.  It was a shock, which is ridiculous because I knew how old he was, it had actually been weighing on me the last time I had read one of his books, We'll Always Have Paris.  Ray Bradbury died at age 91 after more than seventy years of working on his craft, performing magic tricks with words, and working  on living forever in the only way he knew how.

It's sad, and maybe a little strange, for me to be mourning someone I have never met, but I have felt so connected to Ray since the first book of his I ever read.  His writing impacted me so deeply that over the years I have sought everything he had ever put into books, every one of his stories had such depth and resonance, that I truly felt he had no equal, and that he was, as I fondly put it The King of Short Stories.  
 I have chosen to deal with this grief in two ways:  I have started buying up all of the books I don't yet have of his (though I have read them all) which I plan on re-reading, and I have begun to write again.    

Ray always said to write every day, wether you felt like it or not.  Not that I consider myself a writer in any good form, I will never write my own novel, or even a short story, I don't have the gift, but I do love to write.  Unfortunately, I don't have the drive I wish I had to do it on a daily basis.  I go for long periods of time where I am just not in a sharing mood (even in my personal journal), where whatever is happening in my life is just too hard to write about, or I am just so mentally exhausted that I don't have the strength to think too hard about my life.  It's sad because this is something I love to do. 

So to honor Ray I am going to give the writing thing an earnest try.  I have been shocked out of my writing funk, and it feels like an expression of love to one I have lost to begin writing,  sharing my love of all things bookish and the written word with you.

The End of an Era

There isn't much that I can say about these last two books which conclude Asimov's long, long story.  I can't give away anything.
  I feel I must remind everyone that he had never intended it to be that way... that over fifty years of writing about the future history of humanity and of science itself, he had never intended it to be a consecutive tale... it's just serendipity that it ended up that way, and in four final novels he 'made it so'.

After reading Foundation's Edge  I was positively lathered up into a froth of excitement because I thought that the story was heading towards a conclusion that I had always hoped.

Foundation and Earth did not disappoint me.  In so many conclusions of series that I have read over the years, there is sometimes a little sadness because the story is over or disappointment over how it was finished, but I am glad to say that this was not one of those kinds.

Without giving away spoilers I will say this... I had two reactions, or I should say impressions.  The first being  this... do you remember a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Starfleet is infested with a lifeform similar in appearance to a giant beige earwig, that takes over key officers and is trying take over the Federation?  It was quite intense but concluded satisfactorily with Will Riker And Jean Luc Picard 'phasering' the queen bee into goo and all the earwigs exploding.    But not before the lifeforms had managed to send out a message far into space and the episode finishes with a picture of space and the sound of a message being transmitted to who knows where meaning who knows what, and you get a little creepy chill because you just don't know what will happen next.  Well I got that feeling right at the end, so much so that I had to go back and re-read the last page so that I could make sure of why I felt that way.  Shortly afterwards though I had another image, and that is of Dirk Gently standing outside on his front lawn shaking his fist at the night sky and yellling "STOP IT!" (from the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams).

The Foundation Trilogy

         

What an absolute joy it was for me to read this very special group of books.  You might expect after reading the two prequels and then slogging through the original trilogy, that I might have gotten a little bored at this point, but there is no fear of that!
I began with some reluctance, as I was not sure what to expect.  After such a build up from the prequels, I was a little worried that the original trilogy might not measure up to what had been written more than thirty years later.  Each book had it's slow points and were each punctuated with crises that made the event and the solution to it exciting, very clever and even funny at some points (I just couldn't help chuckling with glee at some of the solutions).  Foundation and Empire  was just devastating.  The story of the Mule was so upsetting and intense, where was Isaac going with this, is he killing the Foundation off, is the Seldon Plan kaput?  I feel sorry for the people who had to wait for the next installment.  Luckily I had no such problem and with eagerness I plunged into Second Foundation.
Let me tell you, the first sixty pages of that book were read in one sitting.  I wasn't going anywhere until that story arc was told. 
Now there are only two books to go, and I have a lot of expectations.  I am very curious about how it will all end, but I won't pose my questions here because no matter how I try to write them up, they just give too much away so I will have to keep it all to myself.  I know I won't be disappointed.

Prelude to and Forward the Foundation

 Have I said before how grateful I am to Isaac for tying up all of his stories together into one pretty package?  I probably couldn't say it enough.  I love how he has done that!  

Since I haven't read the Foundation Trilogy yet I'm not sure what to expect.  But the hype that Asimov built in with each chapter by adding inserts from his Encyclopedia Galactica adding a sense of greatness and history to the story, you just know its going to add up to something really really special.  I actually got sick of the term "psychohistory" it was bandied about so much, but I loved the backstory of Hari Seldon, and of how Isaac pulled it all together to make his legacy.  Forward the Foundation was his last novel which makes it all that much precious as we see Hari at the end of his life and the success of his life work accomplished, as Isaac has accomplished his.   

The Eyre Affair

 

I really got a kick out of reading this book!  Like in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,  The Eyre Affair is laced with literary references ... with a twist!  I enjoyed it just as much and know it would have been even better if I had've read the books that were used in this story (yes... I am ashamed to admit I have not read Jane Eyre, or Martin Chuzzlewit!).

This is an alternative history of which Thursday Next is the protagonist.  You'll notice right away with her name that this is no regular kind of book.  It is richly flavored in a  Dickensian way by the names that a lot of these characters have (one of which is Jack Schitt, and I still cannot read that without giggling a little bit because it was used with great skill throughout the novel).  I recommend to anyone to read the book just for that fun value alone.  More also is a science fiction/ futuristic element of technology, in a world that has to protect its literature ( Next is a cop that hunts down literary felons...and I don't mean that literally).  This is where it's a good idea that you know your literature, though I think you can get by pretty well without it (though I'd like to see you not go back and read all the books mentioned afterwards).  I won't tell you any more because I don't want to spoil it... just go out and get it!

There are a few more to read in this series, but I want to be prepared beforehand, so I will read the books featured first (so I don't feel like a stupid boobie for not knowing my stuff).  This year seems to be, so far, a year of finding books that seem to be almost tailored to my own tastes, and I am having a great time discovering them.

Great Expectations

In honor of Charles Dickens 200th birthday I chose Great Expectations to read.  I am embarrased to say that I had not read it yet!  Hopefully I will read them all one day.  I cannot help but feel that Charles Dickens is one person that I wish to get to know well, and the best way to do that is to read all of his works.  I haven't read many so far.  I read David Copperfield in my early teens, and later there was A Chrstmas Carol and Little Dorrit.  An interesting sampling so far which already gives me a good impression of the character of its author.
I admit at this stage in my life my knowledge of this century is still very skimpy, and much of my original reading was done when I was younger so the memories are hazy.  Once, when I was watching the movie Fahrenheit 541 and Montag was reading from David Copperfield, I felt like I wanted to cry too (one of the women he was reading to was) because the passage he was reading aloud  was beautiful (though I think the woman who was crying was doing it for another reason entirely).  Dickens shows me a world I cannot possibly know, but I feel as if I could because he paints very clear pictures with his words.
I am glad that I have made a point of not seeing any of the movies that have been made from this book.  I didn't know what the story was about which was great.  I loved it.  The characters were all so different from each other and some were very strange.  I loved the name Mr. Pumblechook (I think that alone helped me not to hate him!), crazy Miss Havisham, and dependable Joe.   I even joined a discussion group about this book, and earnestly defended Pip to another person who thought that he was a very selfish and awful character.    He really wasn't.  It was a valueable discussion, because I developed a better undertsanding of Pip (because my own initial impression was that he did end up being a selfish so and so). This is something I love about Dickens' books.  You are there with your characters at the beginning, so you can understand them and why they behave the way they do, and you get to share, not only in the adventure of their lives but also the characters they meet along the way.  While there is always adversity, it is sweetened with healthy helpings of good people from all walks of life to soothe the protagonist's way.
So you can see why I wish that I could meet and shake the hand of such a man, to get to know him.  He was brilliant, and an amazing scholar of human nature.  His characters are believable, they are true.

In case you would like to see this as a movie, I recommend watching the PBS 2011 television series as a good place to start.